Day 2

This was our first day of hands on work at the orphanage. We got to the orphanage in the early morning for a tour of the grounds. It is a bit nicer than I had expected, there are boys dorms and girls dorms each with there own beds, bed nets and changing rooms. They have a big dining area and 3 large class rooms. Outside there is a small play area, sinks for dishes, stoves to cook, a garden, a chicken coop, showers and bathrooms.

In the morning the kids who live at the orphanage go to school in the town from 9 until 4. While those kids are at school they invite children from the local area who have homes but who are behind in school to come and take classes at the Kili Centre. They receive a healthy breakfast and lunch (which I ate and it tasted pretty good) and are being taught as quickly as possible to be able to make it into the state run schools which they have to pass a standardized test to get in too. In the afternoon the kids who have homes leave and the children who live at the orphanage get home from school, have dinner and relax.

After the tour we sat in on the children's classes, trying to learn as much Swahili as possible. The kids were very shy and nervous of us at first but went on with class as normal. There is a beginning middle and advanced class that we rotated through and saw the different ability levels the kids were at. During the afternoon break we got to know the kids and communicated as best we could with our broken Swahili and their broken English. After a while I pulled out my football that I brought for the kids and we had a great time throwing, kicking and playing different games with it. It was really fun to hang out with them. We took a bunch of pictures which they love to do and a few of them were literally obsessed with the cameras both being in and taking as many pictures as they could. They also really enjoyed wearing our sunglasses and teaching us Swahili.

The kids are amazing and once they got to know us really opened up. They were very happy and really enjoyed the attention. I cant wait to continue to hang out and help where I can.

After the kids went back to class we worked out the details of the chicken coup project. Business in Africa is done at a much more leisurely pace and was difficult working with a builder who only speaks Swahili but we finally came to a final budget which is being paid for by donations we have all collected. We will be collecting materials and breaking ground tomorrow. It is a really cool project, the orphanage already has 200 chickens and they use the revenue generated by selling the eggs to help cover food costs for the kids. We are building a new coop that will have 100 chickens and help to further cover the cost of food which is their biggest expense.

I am also working on updated Zaneb Zara's tour website. We put together a flow chart for website changes and are continuing on building a marketing plan and highlighting any other flaws we find in her business.

Out of internet time but tomorrow should be another very busy day so I will blog again if I have time.